


The Loss of a Loved One

by Fullmetal450



Series: Loss [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gift, Kinda?, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:01:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8064730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fullmetal450/pseuds/Fullmetal450
Summary: Natasha has few real fears and worries. Everything that has happened since the Sokovia Accords were brought up has dragged her fears in front of her, though, particularly the fear of losing the people she loves. Some changes are too large to come back from.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kirsten.

Everyone is suffering from what has been jokingly named ‘The Divorce’ by Thaddeus Ross. He finds it hilarious, from what Natasha can tell, like it wasn't the destruction of a team filled with friendships and trust. Like her family hasn't been ripped to shreds.

She hasn’t wanted to kill someone so badly in a long time.

Tony isn't sleeping, or eating. At least not the way a normal person does. It does him no kindnesses, and even the grainy footage she manages to steal from the headquarters showcases his slumped shoulder, and the manic energy that comes and goes too quickly for it to be healthy. Press photos show him as thinner, eyes tired with more pronounced lines on his face. Her heart breaks for the way he isn't the Tony she knows. He's all that the government has left as a 'legitimate' superhero, and it's killing him to be everything he thinks he needs to be. She wants to be there for him, to push him around in the way that makes him laugh and puff up in indignation. She wants to tell him that Rhodey doesn't need to be 'fixed,' that he won't love Tony any less if he never builds him a pair of working legs. She wants to tell him that she's sorry things came to this, that she left too, that she couldn't believe in the same things as him. They're too similar, in her eyes, even if Clint laughs when she says it. She knows that fear that used to plague him, that fear of losing the people you love to the things you once did. There's nothing to be done, though. All she can do is sit and watch stolen footage of the man sitting too still, tired and alone, torn apart by his grief for the past and the present. He’s someone she can't reach anymore.

Rhodey has spoken to her a few times. They’re both the voices of reason and common sense in a team of tempers, the ones who shared laughs and looks when someone is being particularly extra that day. He's one of their normal ones, with the ability to smile easily, with a lot less baggage than the rest of them. He’s her pilot, and the one she preferred to ride with when need be, much to Tony’s jealousy. He’s trying to rebuild, to work with what’s left, to at least find someone he can trust with the suit just in case he can never pilot it again. He’s the one who contacts her first, who softly says that he’s scared for his friend who’s too far gone to reach. She knows this feeling quite well. There’s nothing either of them can do, though, for a man too far gone, even for someone sitting right in front of him. Every phone call with him feels like they’ve both left too many things unsaid, but she doesn’t know what those things are.

Natasha is the one who helped Tony with Peter, who smiled at his naïve joy at being part of something bigger, of something he thought would be better. She knows how much he could be, how great he could’ve been at the right moment, at the right time, if he hadn’t been a pawn in a game too big for him. She wonders where he is, and if he worries about them like she and Rhodey worry about him. She wonders if his involvement with this will bring some kind of ruin to him. She wonders if he knows how close he was to ruin when he got tangled up in a superhuman mess like theirs.

Bruce is back on the radar, if only to let them know where to avoid. She knows how the call went, was there when T'Challa and Natasha herself found the man in Australia.  _"Don't call me again. I'm not on your side, I'm not on your team. You'll stay away if you know what's good for you."_   Steve was appalled at the idea that Bruce wouldn't agree, was sure that Tony had talked to him. She and Wanda know, though, from different perspectives. Wanda's seen inside his mind, still worries over what she found in there, won't discuss it with anyone. Natasha knows some of it though. You don't become a comfort blanket for a rage monster without knowing the shattered human on the other side of the coin. She knows about Bruce Banner's broken heart, the way his hands shake after each transformation, not from exhaustion or adrenaline, but with an all-encompassing fear that this will be the time that he'll have gone too far, done too much when his mind and body weren't his. She knows the feeling of him sobbing in her arms, remembers the night that he bared his soul and told her everything, because there are things you can't bottle up forever. She'd been planning on having her own turn, on telling him everything. She doesn't think he'll ever forgive her, for Sokovia or for turning her back on Tony. She isn't sure she would be worthy of it.

Thor wants to make contact, to create peace. She doesn't have the heart to tell him that things are too broken, that his loneliness won't find an answer here. He wants his comradery, believes in the idea that they’re all destined to fight together, to be the best team the earth could put together. He sees the fighting as a fun event, but the actual separation as a childish action. He can’t understand what their short lifespans have to worry about, why insignificant details stop them from ‘saving the planet and punishing evil-doers.’ She misses his joy, but not his arrogance, and knows that she may matter to him, but she still chose a side, still played along with the idea that they would have to split. She doesn’t know how to tell him that a choice had to be made.  

Scott misses his daughter, and he’ll let anyone around him know it. She likes children well enough, and Scott’s life and past are fascinating. They become close friends, new friends, but she knows that he doesn’t feel connected to them, knows he’s there because he was asked, not because of how strongly he believes, or how loyal he is to anyone else with him. She sits and asks about Cassie, though, and Hope and Hank, and does her best to get him in contact with all his other friends, his real friends. Friends made out of joy and love instead of necessity. He’s a good man, one she believes in, and he always makes sure to be thoroughly impressed, the dad in him showing in the way he tries to babysit at times, checks on everyone, oohs and ahs at appropriate times. It’s a bright spot in their current world. She hopes he’ll still be there after this is all over, after he returns to his normal life, or maybe he’ll realize that this wasn’t for him, that this isn’t what he wants. She’ll help him if that’s what he chooses someday, because he has his family to get back to. Even if she’s lost some of hers, she knows how important it is to always come back to them. Scott Lang deserves the happiness he can get from them.

The king of Wakanda is serious, but friendly, and has a kind word for everyone who comes near. He’s a good king, from what she can tell. His friendship is another new one, but while hers with Scott is tentative, she knows T’Challa has locked himself into doing this with them. He knows what he signed up for, and focuses on his country, and the group of people he has agreed to protect, for better or for worse. A month into them all living in his palace, he sits with her, and they talk. The late king, her work with SHIELD, her previous alignment with Tony, all these things come up. He tells her what she doesn’t know about that prison in Siberia, and she tells him the little she knows about the Winter Soldiers, or at least, the only one she knew. He seems at ease, and it lets her rest too. T’Challa is the only one of them who really seems like he knows what’s going on. It’s something that they need right now.

Clint pretends everything is okay with their part of the team, like Scott pretends their situation is perfectly normal. He’ll turn to her every now and then, though, like there’s something he wants to say. He’s the only friendship she’s still sure of, her soulmate that she’s had for so long. It feels strange to be surrounded by people and feel like it’s only really the two of them, Clint at her back and her side simultaneously. She helps with his nightmares while he helps with hers. They’re the dynamic duo, according to him, always destined to end up on the same side. She’s not sure if this is right sometimes. She knows what she believes in, she knows that the choices she made are something she supports wholeheartedly. She’s been making sure of that whenever she can. She just isn’t sure about the way they got here, what this did to all of them. She worries about Laura Barton, and her own little honorary nieces and nephew. She knows Clint doesn’t sleep well until he’s at least seen that they’re alive and well every day. His worry is her own, all because he’s the closest person she’s ever been with. She just wonders how many of their choices could’ve been made differently to avoid this outcome, to avoid this terror felt for a woman and three small children. She doesn’t tell Clint, though. He wouldn’t be able to handle the danger he’s put them in if he feels he could’ve avoided it, and sometimes, she isn’t even sure there’s a chance things could have ended up any way but this one.

The Vision is curious, always wanting to learn more so that he can be more. She knows how he feels about all of this, certain in himself only while the humans around him fall to pieces. He was JARVIS before he was Vision, and part of him still remembers their curious questions and prodding to the AI they thought knew everything. She knows what it was like for him to transition from one form to another, liked to sit in on his sessions with Tony about what things were like for him. She's even the one who suggested a change of outfit. He fascinates her, and in turn she fascinates him like most humans tend to do. He separates himself from them, but tries his hardest to bridge the gap. He's happy to be in Wakanda, understands what is going on, but he stops for a moment sometimes. He asks after Tony often, after Colonel Rhodes, doesn't blame himself in the way the way Sam tries to sometimes, but knows that the man is irrevocably different. She doesn't worry about him, leaves him to be a worrier along with her, for the people they're with and the ones they left behind. He doesn't believe in the same things as them, but believes in the Avengers and the good they can do together. It's difficult to look at him and know he sees things in black and white, when everything in her world is shades of gray and red.

She doesn’t like to talk to Wanda. She seems nice, she recognizes the pain the woman must be going through, and she wishes she could do more than steer Vision in her direction. But a part of her won’t forgive a red mist over her eyes, a poking and prodding in her mind that dragged her back to times she tried to forget. She’ll fight for her though, because even if the trust isn’t totally there, the devotion to the name was. Wanda gave everything, as much as if not more than the rest of them, and was able to move on. She hopes to as well, and someday be able to talk to her about everything she is and was, and what she wants to be.

Sam isn't sure anymore, about any of what they stand for. She sees him looking off in the distance, not looking for anything, just thinking. He’s more contemplative. He’s more afraid. He asks after Rhodey often, and she thinks of a pararescue gone wrong, of another friend that came down from the skies and lost something. She wants to tell him that Rhodey isn’t dead, but she knows that to flyboys like the two of them, not being able to fly is somewhat similar. He tries to keep things happy and light, to make sure they feel like this was the right choice to make, but she knows he doubts, watches Steve carefully for a sign that their leader is faltering. He promised to follow Captain America wherever he went, but he might not have been ready for how rocky the path ended up being. He watches her, too, but not in the same way. She’s the other side for him, the careful follower with a personal agenda. She’s not sure if he wants orders from her, but she meets his gaze when she can, and gives him a shake of the head. She doesn’t know what they do next either. But they’ll rely on each other, because it’s their only chance at survival now.

She sees him for a moment before he’s put back to sleep. She knows his face, another name for him, and knows who he’s supposed to be. The love she once called childish brings nostalgia to her heart, and she feels the tears come to her eyes. She doesn’t let them fall, though. The last thing he needs before another cryogenic drop is her turning into a mess over him, asking him to remember. She hoped for too much, thought she could match Steve in importance in his life. She’s sure he doesn’t know her aside from ‘that woman I tried to kill last year,’ but then he meets her eyes and whispers something in Russian that startles both her and Steve. A soft pet name from a life she once had, with a teasing lilt that would’ve normally been accompanied by a hand tugging on a lock of her hair. She wasn’t sure if she was the last one to know a Winter Soldier that was still someone, but she hopes for there’s a James Barnes stuck in there, waiting to reclaim his mind.

Steve doesn't feel like Steve anymore. His gaze is always tense, always watching the horizon for an attack that no one else sees coming, for an enemy no one else can see. He spends a lot of time in the room Bucky is frozen in, suffering the lower than normal temperatures, like he’s trying for any way to punish himself for not being enough to fix a man who’s been broken far too many times. He puts on his leader smile when he needs to, does his best to keep them at ease. No one believes him, though. They wait for what he waits for, all of them, and she wonders at the man who was not given much peace in his life.

They’re divided, split into fractions because of arguments gone wrong, because of something pushed on them that they didn’t want. The Sokovia Accords, Bucky Barnes resurfacing, the death of the Starks, all a giant mess that… Makes her unsure if her friends are still her family.


End file.
